


Another Layer

by discount_violet (orrisrootroom)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 23:20:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15083957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orrisrootroom/pseuds/discount_violet
Summary: Garak tells Bashir a fourth story about the reasons for his exile.





	Another Layer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSideofMH (MissHammer)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissHammer/gifts).



After seven years of hints and innuendoes, shared danger and historic events, the nature of Garak and Bashir's relationship had changed very quietly. Becoming more than friends and housemates had been a little bust of private joy, folded into the adrenaline and exhaustion of the early days of the Cardassian reconstruction.

And, Bashir thought, as he wriggled out of his dusty work shoes and filled a glass of filtered water (how long since he'd eaten or drunk anything from a replicator?), the two years that followed had been mostly happy ones. It had been a thrilling novelty to find himself and his old friend unconflictedly working for the same things, side by side. And it was like falling in love all over again to discover who Garak was among his own people, to see him shrugging off the chill of exile and only arousing immediate suspicion in a few very savvy or well connected old timers. Eventually they even started up their old book discussions. It was both funny and a little poignant to see the monolithic dreamlike picture of Cardassian culture Garak had built up during his years on DS9 fracture into a labyrinth of contrasting schools and movements -- almost all of which Garak had strong opinions about.

But now Julian was worried. Garak had long known Julien's most important, painful and dangerous secrets. But, Bashir couldn't help but notice, there were certain important things which Garak quietly refused to discuss.

Over dinner Garak would zestfully tell how some unexpected changes in a canteen's yammok sauce had put him on the track of a Gil conspiring with Ferengi war profiteers -- speaking with great charm and relishing Julian's reaction to all the twists and surprises. And he kept Julian very thoroughly updated on the subtle battle of wits and alliance building which raged over the choice of teas stocked at the central office of Garak's bureau of the reconstruction effort (apparently Cardassian politics was, like lying, a skill that required constant practice). He also talked unrestrainedly about the Dominion war and his years on DS9.

But into his earlier adult life, before exile, Garak would not willingly go. Julian had asked a few times since they began living together and then hinted a little afterwards. But Garak had made his boundaries clear, and Julian was determined not to pry. Selfishly, it saddened him a little realize that there was something so personal and important which Garak might never share.  Bashir knew well how strong reasons for secrecy could be. But this secrecy still made him worry that, for all Garak's good humor and affection, the relationship didn't mean the same thing to him as it did to Julian. In gloomier moments, he also worried that Garak avoided talking about the past because he’d done things he knew Bashir would find unforgivable.

 However ultimately, Bashir felt the decision was Garak's to make. Short of an actual medical emergency, Bashir would as soon have sold patients' medical records as forced Garak's confidence. So he'd asked himself if he could live with never learning more about those years, and decided that he could.

Bashir was just inclined felt a little wistful at times like the present, when he came home on the evening before a big civic holiday to find Garak silently musing before his favorite window, with the sharp peaks and bold lines of traditional Cardassian architecture gleaming like white teeth against a dusty pink and red sunset behind him.

So when Garak suddenly turned back from the window and said a little playfully and theatrically (as if pulling this subject out of thin air), "Have I ever told you why Enabran Tain really had me exiled?'' only Bashir's genetically enhanced reflexes prevent him from dropping his glass. He collected it gracefully with his right hand and set it unthinkingly on the counter, before walking quickly over to the window.

***

In another mood, Garak might have smiled at the traces of Bashir's old puppyish curiosity visible in this eager response. But Garak had noticed Bashir's growing preoccupation for a while and had to admit he was touched by the latter's tact. Besides, the nightmares were getting worse, and wasn't it said that confession was good for the soul?

Garak closed his eyes for a moment and cued up his story. This story wasn't exactly the truth, of course (even to the limited extent he'd found people were capable of remembering the literal truth in such cases). It was simplified and stylized, with some elements changed for safety and others to more clearly communicate some truths about his past which he hadn't blurted out in rage and pain years ago when his implant stopped working. But it was enough of the truth to begin with.

"I made an embarrassing mistake. A few years before the end of the Bajoran Occupation a certain ... let's call them Professor Esrat and Gul Esoll began quietly organizing a coup. I was assigned to infiltrate the conspiracy, acting as a double agent. I played my part convincingly and got the information I needed. But just as I was about to leave with it, one of my colleagues compromised the operation.

Now, for what it's worth, Professor Esrat’s theories about strip mining Bajor quickly to fund a chain of conquests of richer worlds made Dukat's administration look like a Risian cultural exchange festival. They would have cost thousands of Bajoran lives in the first phase…and millions of Cardassian lives soon after. And (for a traitorous, blood-thirsty, theory-maddened historian) I have to conceded that she was admirably suspicious and a quick study with interrogation drugs and mental probes.

After 40 hours of inventive interrogation, it seemed to me that my only chance to escape with the crucial documents and my life was to give her something her tests would recognize as a painful personal admission, a credible reason for me to join them. So, in a moment of weakness, in a place where I thought I couldn't possibly be tracked, I asked whether if their coup succeeded they could legitimate my parentage."

“He exiled you just for that? But why? And how could you have known?" Bashir asked.

“I knew as soon as my mind cleared that my career was over and my life in jeopardy. In my adult life, Tain only gave me one warning, but it was a very memorable one," Garak said.

Now Garak mentally dropped into the full sensory reconstruction of the scenario which he'd put together. Creating such mental recombinations out of real memories - and then visiting them to answer questions about a constructed story consistently- was an old school exercise, and a skill that he'd spent many days perfecting during his training as an Obsidian Order agent.

So now, while he narrated his story to Bashir in their comfortable apartment, a part of him simultaneously smelled the chill air of that polar observation center at the fringes of Cardassian space, and heard the measured tones of Romulan diplomats, aids and spies through the universal translator. This would have been about two years before Tain became the head of the Obsidian Order. In the reconstruction Tain's hair was still solid black, and his chin firm, yet he had an aura of general alertness which made him look as dangerous as...well as dangerous as he was.

However, in his mind Garak saw Tain looking uncharacteristically distracted. Some of the Romulans had invited Tain to a secret meeting along with Garak and several other agents.

That meeting turned out to be a trap, and Garak reviewed the mistake he'd made defying orders to rescue Tain. Afterwards he'd even let himself fantasize about winning Tain's gratitude and approval for this rescue, about the different relationship they could have. Then he got an order to meet at a safe house on the planet. Walking through the snowy streets and then standing at the entry in the dark gave him time to think about more and less positive outcomes.

When Tain finally opened the door, and all was warmth and light. A fire blazed behind him. Tain's injuries seemed fully healed, with just a little patch at his shoulder.

Tain began by listing some highlights from Garak's record including some details Garak would never have imagined Tain noticing. Then he said, "So I should have you killed, but I won’t. I won't even demote you. However I expect not to see another display. I realize it must be very difficult for you being an orphan. But this delusion that Mila has fed you… poses grave danger to us both. And it seems you need some help clarifying our relationship.“

Then Tain started checking and laying out certain equipment on the table in front of him. He worked with a subdued and dazed expression, which Garak’s memories of Tain narrating his way through gruesome scenes with professionalism and aplomb made all the more frightening.

When these preparations were complete Tain unexpectedly pressed one of the hyposprays against his own neck. He closed his eyes for a moment and then walked carefully and unsteadily around the desk. He looked ill and weak, as he wouldn’t again for many years.

Then Tain laid a cool unsteady hand on Garak's shoulder, and Garak suddenly guessed where things were going in a flash of nausea and incredulous horror. He remembered how often he had longed for and delighted in a paternal pat on the shoulder from that hand, and his whole body recoiled at the thought.

How could this be happening? Could the Romulan probes have introduced some kind of brain damage or dementia? Could Tain have convinced himself to believe his own lies to this extent? It seemed unfathomable that anyone would go this far to sell a lie, but then Garak remembered other things Tain had done without blinking.

For a moment Garak thought about fighting back (it would be possible to disarm Tain, or kill him in the weakened strange state he was in, but Garak couldn't hope to survive another day after he did it). But then he remembered their work, remembered Cardassian poverty and factions and external threats. And he remembered his own hopes and very rare and hard-won set of skills and (comparatively) disinterested motivations. Dying here, for this, was not an option.

So he let Tain shakily strip off his clothes, which Tain did with some care despite his inebriation, ensuring nothing would be visibly damaged.

Then Tain went to work, using his interrogating implements and then fingers and a powered off phaser which was soon covered in Garak's blood.

At first Tain was physically incapable of using more traditional means. But he reset the hypospray and injected himself with something that changed his heartbeat so that Garak would have feared for his life, if he knew whether he wanted Tain to live or die at moment. Then he gestured with the gun for Garak to kneel.

Finally Tain stopped abruptly, and gestured Garak to clean himself and leave. Garak thought he could see traces of tears, but this might have been a trick of the light.

Garak washed and dressed himself very carefully, with each step seeming to take an impossible amount of time, and then left.

The next day Tain appeared looking very collected and spoke very highly and naturally of his gratitude and Garak’s ability and gave him a promotion to work at the Cardassian embassy on Q’uonos.

Bashir asked quietly and gently, trying not to sound horrified, “If he knew that he was your father all along, then why?"

“Well Tain would have said that it was important for him not to acknowledge or become attached me as a son because he couldn't have afforded the distraction and known vulnerability. But that was only true at the beginning, if it ever was. By the time I was an adult, I saw him juggling much graver problems. So I don’t think that was his real reason.

I don't know if I'll ever understand him. But my best guess is ...well...you know that my people tend to be rather sentimental about family and children. He saw his life as one of total devotion to and sacrifice for the state, with forgoing children being the greatest sacrifice. If he acknowledged me as a son, it would replace this legacy of austerity with one of neglect of a personal duty we take very seriously. If he once began treating me as his child and no disaster followed it would have made him feel (rightly or wrongly) that all his previous years of loneliness and wishing for a child were unnecessary, an act of shabby cowardice and neglect, rather than a necessary sacrifice. And after all the things he'd done in the name of service to Cardassia, after all the things he'd excused himself by thinking of himself as a lonely martyred hero - he couldn't take that risk. So it was important for him to put me, and that possibility, out of mind.

And I have to admit that his scheme worked fairly well, for a long time."

***

By the end of the tale, Bashir sat beside Garak and looked at him feelingly, but without pressing any further questions.

He followed Garak's lead when the latter suggested a walk through empty streets as the sun rose. The air was pleasantly cool and crisp to Garak, and warm but not uncomfortably so to Bashir. They walked through a maze of narrow side streets until they came to first non-utilitarian new building Bashir could remember seeing since the reconstruction. It was an arch made out of some strange pale green glassy material, but with odd flatness and crudeness and lack of fit between the different parts.

Garak explained that it was a replica of a famous Hebetian arch. Its finest carvings had been sold during the eras of poverty before the recent age of militarism. The rest of the jevonite facings had been sold off to fund the conquest of Bajor, and most of the plain stone fountains which reminded had been destroyed during the Dominion withdrawal. This pointedly clumsy replica, which various citizens had assembled, was a promise from Cardassia to itself.

Garak said something expectedly caustic about the crudeness of this symbolism. But he couldn’t disguise that he was a little moved as he stood for a long time looking up at the smooth enigmatic curves of the replica in silence.

Then Bashir tentatively put an arm around him, and asked a question about one of the mythological figures in the statue, and Garak began to explain. By the time the latter had got from incisively summarizing the relevant history and mythology to criticizing the presuppositions behind Bashir’s questions, Bashir snuck a glance at his old friend and lover and found him looking tired and scared, but somehow also more serene and hopeful than he had for a long time.


End file.
